SMITH MORRA TRAP!!

I was playing white in this game and most suprisingly my opponent didnt seem to comfortable with the transposition into the smith morra which led to him following natural moves before losing the queen to a common trap..
hope u enjoy this as much as I did.
simple stuff!!!

BENKO GAMBIT.

I have always had a soft spot for the much maligned gambit... (amongst others gambits Kings gambit, Evans Gambit,B.D.G.)
I think the gambit has received very poor press in the chess world considering no GM. uses it as a major weapon in their opening repertoire.
During the next week I will study some of the games and finally decide whether to take it up and sure as hell, if the games are interesting i.e I don't get blown out of the water facing equal or slightly superior opposition then the games will be here.
thanks.
the following "borrowed" videos are part of my elementary understanding of the opening.
UPDATE.
The video below despite the poor audio has pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the gambit.
please take time to play thru it and u shall also realise why to a prepared player, the benko is probably confined to providing a surprise weapon for white.
now am back to square one.

TACTICAL STORM

Having learnt my lessons from my previous game, witness how faced with an opponent slightly misplaying the opening, I decided to steal pawns and eventually a knight in broad daylight!!
Feeling slightly upbeat it seemed am finally learning how to squeeze wins in my games.
enjoy.

Bad Bishop....

I have begun playing the sicilian as my main weapon to counter 1.e4.
This was a game where I forgot one of the mantras of chess.....
its about the pesky little issue of seeking the initiative, keeping it and developing the pieces..
My opponent properly set on exposing my weakness (very bad bishop) which "encouraged" me to tactically try to solve the problem upon which I got properly thumped!!!!

CONVERTING ONE ADVANTAGE TO ANOTHER..

This was a conscious effort on my part to give back a pawn and effectively lock out my opponents bishop from the game..
hope u enjoy it..

Random posting

How to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory....

I feel some background information about the following game is justified....

• I was recovering from the flu at the time and so had a raging headache after 45 mins on my clock....
• I had hoped to play white and indulge my opponent in aggressive chess....
  please see kings gambits,Evans ,or B.D.G ,which I was prepared for..
• finding myself facing 1.e4 , the most logical response was the shveshnikov Sicilian which according to G.M. John Nunn is living on the knife-edge for Sicilian fans... (sir.. I agree)

The game itself started slowly before it opened up and I was suddenly an exchange up heading into the endgame...



typical of sods law, the brain stopped engaging and I allowed my opponent a chance to salvage a draw......
cue me slapping the taste out of my mouth and my opponent surely relieved that I managed to swindle myself out of a win....
oh well enjoy and let me know.
thanks.

HOW TO LOSE IN THE OPENING.

RULE 1: Surrender the initiative to your opponent ... check.
RULE 2: Ignore tactics from the beginning ... check
RULE 3: Basically leave your thinking cap at home.. check.

all the above 3 rules were strongly flaunted in this game.. and by move 6 I sure was in trouble...

"To Gambit or not to gambit"

I was meant to lose this game till my opponent fatally missed a mate threat till to0 late on move 8 and as my mate fritz says, "the rest is history"

PINS, PINS AND MORE PINS........

This was a game which entailed a series of attempts to unravel one pin after another before finally exchanging my queen for two rooks to stifle any counter play from my opponent.
having come out of the opening with a material advantage.

isolated queens pawn